Letter to Myself From 25 Years Ago

Back in 1991, when I was on the Student Senate at Sauk Valley Community College, we created a time capsule.  We all wrote letters to ourselves and sealed them inside with the understanding we would read them to ourselves twenty-five years later.

I've lived in dread of that moment.  And today, that moment came.

First, the letter was incredibly personal with no regard for which idiot would find and read it.  There was some seriously insane lines but that wasn't what really stood out to me.  What jumped out was the certainty that I'd be dead.

The letter to myself was totally certain I'd be dead and there was just a slight chance I'd be alive.  Furthermore, there was no clue as to how bizarre that belief was, or how unnatural it is to know you're going to die young.  Not believe, but know.

The letter, for some stupid reason, went on to list all the various failings I'd had with women because obviously that would be important twenty-five years later.  Obviously.

I feel like this letter to wisdom is what a bottle of ketchup is to an emergency Go! bag.  Useless, pointless, and completely inept.  I was nineteen and only knew depression, loneliness, and anger.

But there was this weird, optimistic side I had completely forgotten.  I had dreams back then.  I had dreams and goals.  In a weird way, I looked forward to the future.  Granted, they were pie-in-the-sky hopes, but I had hope.  

I never knew how to achieve a goal in life until just recently.  It sounds weird, but it's true--I figured dreams were something that just happened to other people.  And when you think dreams are like that, and they don't come true for you, then obviously there is something wrong with you and you know you'll never be happy.

Goals have to be earned.  Dreams have to earned and more often than not, you'll never really achieve them.  I had no idea back then.  I just figured I'd dress up and show up and magically things would just happen.  After all, I'm Ted--I'm awesome.

Does your current life live up to what you expected?  What are you driving?  Are you still writing?  Why not?  Did you forget your goals?  Let's review, shall we?
1)  Become on of the top horror writers ever.  

2)  Become the best, most followed political writer of your generation.
3)  Become the voice of your generation.
4)  Because the first writer to go in space and write about the experience.
5)  Possibly teaching English in high school or college.

No, this isn't what I expected.  I'm driving a 21 year-old Buick that needs work.  In fact, it overheated the whole way down and back, so I had to keep the vent on hot and the fan on high, basically cooking me. And yes, I'm writing.  Again.  I stopped for about 15 years or so, but I'm back at it.  And I'm making progress.

And yes, I forgot my goals.  I totally lost the plot.  I got confused and stuck in the fog of war.  Over the years, I lost track of where I was heading and what I wanted to do.  I was lost in a labyrinth of monsters, quicksand, and demons.

In a lot of ways, I needed this letter.  I needed to see it and I need to go back to where I once was to get the old scent back.  That feeling of "Yeah, I can do this!"

I needed to get out of the trenches so I could see the vast landscape around me and all the opportunities that are available, while at the same time remind myself that I am, indeed, a writer who needs to write.

I'll end with a Ted Moment.

So, I'm standing up in front of a group of people.  I'm opening my letter and I make the comment, "I'm glad I'm the one opening this and not somebody else.  I wasn't sure how this would go.  Good thing I didn't confess to any murders, eh?"

Silence.  Crickets.

The whole crowd got awkwardly silent and I was thinking, "Fuck you, people!  That was funny!"

The Way of the Van isn't for everybody but it's my way and I'm moving forward.

Just Get in the Damned Van!

It's not easy being creepy.  Especially when you need some kids to help you break into your own apartment after you've locked yourself out.

Yes.  I did that.

I work from home now so time outside during the day is at a premium.  I went outside on my 10-minute break to take out the trash and somehow locked the door behind me.

This is the second time I've done this.  Previously, my neighbor climbed through the window and opened my door for me.  This time, I was screwed.  There was nobody outside or walking around.

But then I saw two kids who looked to be around middle-school aged.  I thought I was in luck.  Kids love helping old people out, right?

No.

They kept walking right past me like I wasn't even there.  Just kept on walking and pretended not to hear me.

That was highly rude, but I get it.  Some big, creepy guy like me is exactly what kids are told to avoid these days.  They didn't know me and it doesn't matter I live in a small town with 800 people.  The days of helping somebody who asks for help are long gone and we've gone into the next phase of social decay--distrust.  Nobody trusts anybody.

But I'm still pissed so I plan on finding where these little turds live and standing outside of their house at night wearing a clown costume.  Let those little fuckers deal with that!  I might even hold a few balloons while I wordlessly stare from the street.

Speaking of work, there's something that's really bothering me.  Part of my job is once in a while I have to read a script to customers.  It's a tedious thing that takes a minute but we have to do it before we transfer them to an automated system.  The problem is customers will often ignore me and have a conversation with somebody while I go through my script.  I'm reading this damned thing for the stupid recording so if the call gets pulled for legal reasons, the company I'm contracted with can tell the customers to fuck off because they agreed to everything.

This pisses me off so now I want to ad-lib a few things and see if they notice.

"...and then we'll have a mangy dog with dysentery shit on your floor now please wait for the beep.  Thank you."

Most of the people I deal with are idiots.  Worse, some think they can get snotty with me because I'm supposed to just sit there and take it.  It would be nice if the bosses took the leash off and let us snap back on these assholes.  But no, our contractor doesn't want us to do that, because then it would all degrade into call after call being a shouting match.

So, I have to be nice.  Imagine a bear tied to a tree with toilet paper.  Yeah, I could strip flesh from bone with a few sentences.  Sadly, they have these shitty rules I have to follow.

On my last day of work, I am going to rip into people without mercy.  I will blast each stupid comment I hear with flame until somebody calls my boss and begs him to do something about it.  The dumber the rep, the worse their punishment shall be, until I reduce each and every one to a sobbing shell of a human being.

And then all will be right with the world once again.  Balance will be restored, flowers will bloom, children will smile, and the snozberries will once again taste like snozberries.  

I'd like to end this with me going off to watch the Cubs play but once again the shithead tech from MediaCom cut my wires.  Again.  This is twice now this asshole tech has cut my wires.  The first time was at my old place when he installed the Circus Freaks upstairs and this time when he was installing somebody in this apartment building.

I plan on calling MediaCom to bitch and have them send the guy out to fix it but this time, I'm doing to great him wearing a leather thong with studs and a hockey mask.  Then, I'm going to watch him work and comment about how upset I was I couldn't watch my cartoons in the morning.

If you're gonna be creepy, do it right.  

Uncle Ted's Guide to Disposing of a Body: Part II

If you're just joining us, I'm currently pandering to the dark underbelly of human nature by posting a guide to hide evidence of a crime.  Remember, kids--murder is highly illegal and you shouldn't do it.

Let's call this a guide for writers such as myself, only better talented and disciplined, who couldn't imagine what to do in such a situation but somehow wrote themselves into a corner.  Their beloved character had enough shit and killed somebody.  Oops.

But it's okay.  I know accidents happen.  And let's face it, some motherfuckers need killin'.  Characters, I mean.  Some characters need killin'.  Because Harry Potter would never kill Delores Umbridge even though the bitch totally had it coming but I could see Hermione snapping one day and just going apeshit.  After all, she did get Umbridge gang-raped by a bunch of centaurs.  That's pretty fucking evil.

Sometimes, it's better to just kill a character off and be done with it.

But what about the body?

In the first part, I covered the basics of the first few hours.  Those are hectic moments and you can't be too careful.  It pays to go over each and every part again.  But now, you've got the body in your bath tub or shower stall.  It has been stripped down, the cell phone has been destroyed, the clothes are in a garbage bag.  You've got your cleaning supplies and you've lots of extra garbage bags.

Now you're ready to cut up the body.  Hopefully, it's freezing cold outside or you have a chest freezer.  A frozen body is so much easier to cut up than a fresh one.  Trust me on this.

If you're using an electric saw, the job will go faster, but you have to be careful about getting DNA caught inside the saw and to not let pieces get flung about.  While a hacksaw will take more effort and time, you can control a few more things.  And control is really what you need.  Besides, it's good exercise and it'll help you think more clearly as you get more oxygen in your blood.

The size of the pieces shouldn't be too large.  The obvious cuts, like hands, wrists, feet, etc are simple.  But when you get to the torso, think of it in terms of a whole chicken.  Nothing bigger than that, if you can.

Why?

The smaller the pieces, the more easily you can distribute them.  Don't be tempted to burn them individually in a bonfire in the backyard.  Human flesh has a distinct odor and anybody who has ever smelled it before will remember it forever.  If somebody driving down the road smells something that reminds them of their deployment in Kuwait during the first Gulf War, or something similar, they'll know what you've been doing.  You don't want that.

Small pieces mean you can individually wrap them in a couple of garbage bags and dump them in a wide circle.  Fill the car's gas tanks and go for a drive.  Dump one in the garbage can at the pump.  Dump another in the can at McDonald's.  Drive to the next town for a Big Mac and do that again.  You see the pattern?

Another option is to make concrete squares.  Use some rebar and chicken wire for the frame, fill 1/3 with concrete, place the piece inside, then top off.  Once dry, you can use it as a paver for your patio out back.  Or use it as a border for your garden.  Or if you want, throw them into various creeks, ponds, rivers, streams, and lakes.

It'll take time, but your time will be rewarded.

If you happen to know a pig farmer, then you're lucky.  But most people don't realize slurry ponds are better.  Those ponds are full of animal waste and bacteria that will eat those pieces up in weeks until there is nothing left.

I wouldn't burn their clothing because it's next to impossible to get all of it burned.  You don't want police to find pieces of Mr. Deadman's unique flannel shirt and specific metal buttons off his jeans in your burn pile out back.  Burning attracts attention.

My advice is to cut the clothing up into small pieces, put in a plastic bag, and dump in various garbage cans around town.  With buckles, buttons, and zippers you can always throw in a river or lake because they'll sink.

Ultimately, getting rid of a body is about using common sense.  I know during this time stress and anxiety will be working against a person, but make sure your Main Character *cough* takes time to think about what they're doing, and what will happen a few moves later.  Be rational.

Will somebody find this?  How?

The harder a person has to work to find evidence, the least likely it is that evidence will be found.  Your character won't be able to work against a system, will an army of forensics professionals and detectives searching for clues, but your character can leave so little evidence they don't have a reason to suspect him or her of murder.

Remember, human nature is to be lazy and unless you give them a reason to do their job, they won't.  So when you're writing this story, and you've written yourself into a corner, be calm and rational.  Think about what your actions might produce, then act accordingly.  This way, your character won't get caught, and that'll make everybody happy in the end.

Death on my Mind

I've been thinking of death a great deal in recent weeks.  More so than normal and probably way more than is healthy.

Just so you know, I've mentioned in my will that six of my smallest friends will be asked to be pall bearers at my funeral.  If for no other reason than the laughs I'll have watching six scrawny bastards lug my ass around.  I can hear the cursing already.

But no, death has been on my mind.  I think it has something to do with the time of year.  March 30 is the anniversary of my dad's suicide.  It was 1994 but for some reason it has really had an impact on me in recent weeks.  I think about it often.

As I've said before, my dad was a drunk and a fiend.  By the time I was in middle school, he was going through over a case and a half of Old Milwaukee 16-oz tallboys.  He would wake up extra early and drink in the middle of the night to take away the shakes.  By high school, he was going through even more because of his bar visits and shots of whiskey in the morning.

By the time I was Junior in high school, my dad had permanent brain damage as a result of his drinking.  He walked differently and his hands hung down by his side in awkward claws.  He was incapable of conversation.  He only spat out bitter insults.  Because of the diabetes and cirrhosis, he dropped over a hundred pounds in a few months.  He was gray and pasty.  His eyes were watery and his eyelids drooped.

He had begun falling asleep while driving as a result of the blood sugar issues and gotten into a few fender-benders.

There was a picture taken of the family when I was in high school.  My mother insisted we do it so the church would have a new, updated photo for their directory.  The photo speaks volumes about our family.  My dad looked like death warmed over.  It was as if somebody had propped him up and he didn't know where he was.  My little sister was trying so hard to be the good girl, I was sucking in my gut and had the fakest smile ever.  And my mother looked like not a goddamned thing was wrong in the world and we were a normal family.

I was angry when I found out my dad had killed himself.  I was in college and it really upset me.  I was relived, too, because that meant the battle was over.  The constant warring was done because even though he and I hadn't spoken in months, it felt like I was still at war with him.  He hated me and I thought his death would end that hatred.  Oh, so little I knew.

What this time of year reminds me of is more than just his death.  The funeral was perhaps the worst funeral you could imagine.  My grandmother kept going from extremes of ignoring us, to cornering us and saying if we'd been better kids and loved him more, he wouldn't have done this.  It was our fault he killed himself.

It seems in the months during the time he moved back in with his mother, Dad just went on non-stop about how awful we were to him, how we gave him a reason to drink, and how we horribly mistreated him.  His death was our fault.

At the funeral, people kept coming up with all kinds of theories as to what really happened.  Anything to take the blame off of him.  It was the diabetes, it was an undiagnosed head injury from a car accident over ten years prior, it was an allergy to some medicine.  It wasn't his fault.

It was insane.  All of it.  My aunt spun everything I said into a happy memory.  He refused to speak to me for a couple of years?  Oh, so it was nice and quiet, huh?  Shit like that.

My dad died twenty-two years ago and for the past few weeks, it's been like yesterday.  I can't shake it or the memories.  I can't shake how angry I was and how upset I felt.  How horribly tragic it all was yet somehow fitting.  I was furious that everybody was mourning such a monster while I had nothing but anger.

Death.

We all die.  My dad made a choice.  A week after his divorce from my mother was final, he killed himself.

I always wondered--did he think he made a mess of it and had no reason to keep going?  Or did he think there was no way to pull out of the nose-dive?  He was a broken man.  Physically, mentally, and emotionally.  He was living with a sadistic, manipulative mother who delighted in playing head-games.  For him, it was done and there was nothing left.

My sister and I have been talking lately.  We talk about Dad and how angry we are at him.  One of the things she pointed out was how he opened that door for us.  The suicide of a parent makes that option all the more viable.

My single greatest concern is how closely my life resemble's my dad's and how often I find myself doing things just to not be him.  He was a selfish prick.  I like doing things for people just because.  There's one woman I used to bring food I made for no reason at all but to see her smile.  I wasn't in love with her, I didn't hate her.  I didn't want her to love me.  I just wanted to see her smile and get nothing in return but that smile because that's something my dad would have never done.

I have no idea what helps me cling to sanity, but sometimes whatever it is works, and I don't feel so much like my dad.

I'm sick of feeling like a collection of fucked-up anniversaries.  I'm sick of dates on the calendar looming like a minefield.  In recent days, I've been getting head aches and I've had a hard time sleeping.  I get angry and then upset for no reason.  And then a list pops up in my head and I compare myself with my dad and how we're alike in all the wrong ways.  That's when it feels like I've seen this movie before and I know how it ends.  

My great-grandmother was a wonderful Irish lady.  She used to have a saying:  If you're born to drown, you'll never hang.  You can't change fate.  And I'm pretty sure I'll never drown.  

Uncle Ted's Guide to Disposing of a Body: Part I

March is Cannibalism Awareness Month.  In celebration of this, and in light of recent events, I decided now would be a good time to begin posting this.

So let's get on with it, shall we?  I have other shit to write and this topic has gotten a lot of attention from me but sadly, not all of you have had the pleasure of my mentoring.

So let's say you suddenly find yourself with a dead body.  The circumstances are meaningless and I really don't care.  You have a body and you can't report this to the authorities.  Given the current state of affairs, I don't blame you for coming to me, because we cannot trust the government to see logic and reason anymore.  These days, they will most likely crawl so deeply into your personal life, you'll wish they had kissed you first.

No, you have a body and it's on you to get rid of it.  But how?

Time is important here.  Blood gets into the most hidden of places.  The cracks of floors, carpeting, clothing, under book cases, etc.  Trust me, if the body is bleeding, you've got blood someplace.  This is why it's always best to snap a neck if you get the chance.  This eliminates the possibility of getting blood all over the place.

But you didn't get that chance, did you?  You had to act quickly and now you've got a bleeding body.

Tick-tock-tick-tock.

Where this is happening is key.  If you're in your home, this has good potential and bad potential. But, the dead body is leaving DNA all over the place and this is the first place the cops are going to look. You need to do something fast.

First, get the body someplace where bleeding doesn't matter.  That means containment.  A bathtub or shower stall is great.  You can clean that up with bleach in a short time.  But dragging a body through your house is a bad idea.

This is where garbage bags come in handy.  Commercial garbage bags are best because you can stuff an entire body into one.  Most will hold well over 100 lbs and they're water-tight, so blood and other fluids will stop leaking all over the place.  If you need to, use plastic sheeting for windows.  Even a shower curtain.  You have to contain this body at all costs!

Blood = Failure.

Any blood, fluid, hair, skin, or nails that come off that body increase your chances of getting caught.  Prison sucks.  Nobody wants to go there.

Once you have the body contained, keep in mind that containment is only temporary.  That body will continue to seep and ooze until it is dust.  You can't stop that.  All you can do is channel that flow in a controlled setting.  This is why a bathtub or shower stall is the best if suddenly having to get rid of a body.

If the body is too heavy for you to lift, roll it onto a blanket and drag it.  Plastic slides on carpet, a blanket slides on hard surfaces.  If it's too difficult, use flour or talcum powder on the hard surfaces. Don't use water.  Keep it dry as possible.

Blood is heavy.  One pint of blood is a pound.  The human body has about ten pints, give or take, depending on size.  But there are many reasons you need to get the blood out.  Blood makes decomposition happen faster and you don't want that.  It smells to high heaven and alerts neighbors you have a dead body someplace.

Once the body is in some sort of containment, and before you begin draining blood, you will have a brief period of time to collect yourself.  Get your head straight and look around you.  What have you missed?  This is the time when you look over your cleaning supplies.  Bleach is now your best friend in the whole, wide world.  Get some!

Hint:  Change clothes before you go out for supplies.  There is a good chance you have blood on them someplace and you've missed it.  People will notice you have blood on you.  Change clothes, and change them back when you come home.  The clothes you wore when you did the killing will be the clothes you wear when you do the cutting.  Those clothes will also be burned when you're all done.  Sorry about the nice pair of pants you like so much.  Do you want to keep them or go to prison?  Your choice.

Pay for your bleach in cash.  Never use a debit card or check.  Buy it in two-bottle purchases in several places and make sure to buy the unscented kind if possible.  Also, buy extra garbage bags, duct tape, paper towels, lighter fluid, matches, baking soda, and gloves for dishwashing.  Use cash!

Spreading your purchases keeps red flags down to a minimum and using cash makes them harder to track.  You don't want the cops looking at your purchases with your debit card and seeing our little supply list, do you?  Be smart!

Once you have cleaning supplies, you can begin draining the body of blood.  Careful with arterial spray.  A dead body will still spray blood all over the damned place so use caution when you slice open the main arteries around the neck.  This is also a good time to cut the clothes off.  You'll be burning these later so put them in a garbage bag, too.

If they have a cell phone on them, find it, and take out the battery, then destroy it.  You should be wearing glove when you do this.  Make sure you wipe any fingerprints off this phone before you destroy it.  Once that is done, put it in a bag for later.

The best way to get rid of a smashed cell phone is to drive out in the country with the window down and every half-mile, throw a piece of it out.

Once the body is totally naked, you can begin squeezing the blood out.  It will also seep other fluids, like piss and shit, so be careful of that, too.  Elevate the legs and bend them to the belly like a pump. You'll know you're done when the blood stops flowing.

A hacksaw is great for cutting up a body, but it's a lot of work.  You can use a power saw, but you have to be careful of getting DNA on that, too.  Everybody talks about a wood chipper, but it is impossible to run a body through that and get all the DNA cleaned out.  Hollywood is full of shit so you'll have to disregard most of what they show.  Don't use a wood chipper.

Yes, sawing by hand is tiring, but rewarding.  Be careful not to saw through and nick your tub or shower stall.  A quality CSI team will notice this and could possibly extract DNA from the groove. Avoid this by being careful.

If you have a chest freezer, consider freezing the body before cutting it up.  A frozen body cuts much better.  If it's winter and well below freezing outside, you can risk leaving the body in the garage for a day, but that's a risk you'll have to calculate.  Will somebody be coming around soon for a look?  If so, don't do it.  A chest freezer will need a good 36 hours to completely freeze an average body.

Make sure you run a healthy amount of bleach down your drains along with the blood.  Use hot water with it.  Wear your gloves and make sure you've bleached everything in your bathroom.  Then, use the bleach to clean your house.

If you have blood on your carpet, cut that part out.  If anybody asks, the dog had diarrhea or you puked after drinking a bunch of red wine.  Whatever.  Getting rid of carpet is suspicious, but not illegal.  Suspicion is better than proof.  There are recipes online to make your own luminol.  And you can make any light into a blacklight with a purple marker.

The next installment will be about what to do with those body parts.

Bacon to the Rescue!

This weekend I felt like shit.

Nothing physically wrong, just the usual head problems, like normal.  It was Valentine's Day and that never goes well for anybody.

Everybody knows I hate Valentine's Day.  It's the sulfuric acid of holidays.  It stings, it hurts, it makes one cough and hack, the fumes hurt my lungs, and I can't drink it.

Valentine's Day is the day nobody is happy with anything.  The pretty girls don't get gifts from the right guy and instead get cheap gifts from beta males too terrified to ask them out.  It's the day men can't do anything right.  It's the day women are reduced to game animals.  It just doesn't work as a day of romance.

So, I was feeling shitty for a whole host of reasons.  I haven't been writing in months.  I haven't even tried to write.  Why bother?  It's all crap, right?

My employer announced they were shutting down our building by the end of February.  In truth, they have to be out of the building by then, so it's a mad rush to get everybody fired or set up to work from home.  Most of my friends have lost their jobs.

Worse, in just a few days, I'll start working from home.

We haven't even begun training for this.

We haven't gotten our computers, been told many of the details we need to know, nor have we sorted out the simple flow of information we'll need to do our jobs.  Instead of being able to ask the person across from you a question, we'll have to have a chat room going 24/7 because we rely so much upon a hive-mind approach.

No one person knows everything so we're constantly having to ask each other questions.  At least five or six times a day important questions come up and if I'm working from home, I'll need to be able to talk to somebody about it.  We haven't sorted that out yet, though.

We're the canary in the mine for our company.  Our whole industry is going to a work-from-home model and our company is testing software, management hierarchies, client relations and feedback, plus HR modes on us.  We're lab monkeys covered in mascara and lipstick in cages.

My life of poverty has been stressful enough.  Because of my financial parasites, it doesn't matter how much money I make, I will always be reduced to living hand-to-mouth.  Always.  It doesn't matter where I work or what job I have, I will always bring home about the same amount of money.

But because there aren't many jobs out there that will give full-time hours, or even hire somebody like me, I'm stuck.  I'm incredibly trapped working for a company that is little more than a human gristmill while financial parasites suck the life out of me.  And the only way a host gets rid of the stronger parasites is death.

So, to review, this weekend I was lonely, stressed, depressed, angry and anxious.  I was a bit of a wreck.

But something called to me from my fridge.  It was a siren's song.  It was the seductive voice of bacon telling me things are going to be okay.  Just eat some bacon, it said to me.  Just eat some bacon and the day will get better.

So I did.  And instantly my life got better.

Just the smell of that fatty, salty, greasy love lifted my spirits and made me feel okay about existing. The sound, the sizzle and crackle, the beautiful promise of pig candy.  Hell, I even fried some pancakes in the grease, because if you're going to binge you fucking do it right.  We don't fuck around here.  I've never wanted one of anything in my entire life and indulging on bacon and dough fried in bacon grease is simply the best way to express that.  Or at least the best way available.

The other day somebody gave me shit for eating bacon.  "Bacon is not healthy.  It clogs your arteries and is terrible for your heart."

"Bitch," I said.  "I don't have a reason to wake up tomorrow.  Why in the fuck would I want to live another twenty years?"

One of my favorite bands, Bloodhound Gang, had a motto:  No reason to live, but we like it that way.

The only thing keeping me attached to this planet are a handful of friends and morbid curiosity. What train wreck will I get to see today?   I'm stuck in mud, chained to boulders, while the rest of the planet moves forward with their lives.  I'm still in the same shitty rut I've always been in and I can't seem to break free of it.

But bacon fixes that.  Bacon sings to me and asks me how I could possibly live in a reality that didn't include it.

If I die of a stroke or a heart attack, I want the coroner to put "Death by Bacon" on my Death Certificate just to give credit where credit is due.  I was euthanized by bacon so at least my death was merciful.

I'm too broke for a headstone.  But if I could have one, I would want it to say, "Oh, Death!  Where is Thy Sting?"  And then I'd have an image of bacon carved into it.

May the Bacon be with you.

Die, Jar-Jar! Die!

What character in all of Star Wars is the most hated?  

Most will shout, "Jar Jar Binks" at the top of their lungs.  And they would be right, because Jar Jar Binks is without a doubt the shittiest character to ever be in any Star Wars film.  

He destroyed The Phantom Menace.  He destroyed the following two films as well.  Jar Jar Binks was sand rubbed into the eyes of the Star Wars faithful.  Just to hear his ignorant sayings and verbage was an assault on our senses.  

If you ever want to annoy somebody into punching you, speak to them in Jar Jar's voice, using his phrasing.  

"Meesa be wantin' da double cheeseburger, with some of dat bomb-bad Mt. Dew, okee-day!"  

Fuck!  Just writing that makes me want to stab a kitten with a spork.  

George Lucas needs to go back and edit out Jar Jar but he can't because he made his idiotic bumbling so intrinsic to the plot.  We're stuck with Jar Jar Binks.  

So as compensation for having to endure three movies and countless Clone Wars episodes featuring him, we fans deserve something in return--we deserve to see the death of Jar Jar.  

Not a reference.  No, sir!  Not some off-handed comment by Rey when reading a tablet, "Oh, look!  It says here that after the passing of Ambassador Jar Jar Binks, the key to the plot was taken to another silly-named planet."  

Bullshit!  

We deserve some kind of flashback or a holographic projection from a historical document where we get to see the brutal and savage execution of Jar Jar Binks while he screams in agony and is torn apart limb from limb.  

Jar Jar Binks must fucking die and we fans deserve to watch it all happen.  

That stupid walk of his, the way he stuffed his face with that long frog-like tongue, the way he tripped and fell over his own goddamned feet while somehow saving Anakin and Obi-Wan from death, those stupid long ears that looked like a jackrabbit after doing bong hits--he needs to fucking die in front of us.  

Jar Jar needs to be devoured by a pack of hungry rathtars who throw him around while he makes those insipid noises he always makes when he does something clumsy.  

"Meesa muy-muy dyin' from blood loss!"  

The rathtars can use their tentacles to rip his arms and legs off while he screams and shouts for Anakin to come save him only for us to hear Darth Vader's breathing in the background as Lord Vader watches in amusement.  Then, we hear him say, "It is done."  

FADE OUT

We fans will continue to suffer the legacy of Jar Jar Binks for decades to come until we know for sure he's dead and won't come back.  We need to know the shitheads writing the script don't suddenly decide Gungans can live for hundreds of years like Yoda because they'll do shit like that if you don't nip it in the bud right away.  Writers can be real assholes sometimes.  

Worse, Jar Jar Binks is like the protoplasm of bad writing, so if they're in a hole of some kind, the temptation to suddenly bring in Jar Jar to get people out of a jam is too great.  

"You mean I can bring in some bumbling fucktard to trip and fall like a buffoon and still help the dozen or so heroes escape from prison?  Well shit, let's do it!"  

Steven Moffat, I'm going to piss on your grave after you finally die.  But I digress...

Jar Jar cannot be erased.  He can't be edited out.  He must be killed.  Horribly, painfully, and with finality.  

We fans deserve this.  We demand it.  And dammit, it needs to be added to the next script!  What's thirty seconds of death in a movie that is promised to be dark and bloody?  We've got stormtroopers than can actually aim and hit something--let's use one of them!  

Or better yet--Chewbacca went to marksmanship training and figured out how to hit the fucking bullseye.  Let's let Chewy nuke the annoying Gungan.  

Or even better still--Leia kills him because he's fucking up an op and she can't stand to watch it anymore.  He's giving away their position with all of that buffoonery and she gets fed up so she blasts him in the back of the head twice and we all get on with our lives.  

Or the Emperor does it himself.  He invites Jar Jar to a meeting where he uses his electric force-shocks to fry Jar Jar Binks into bacon while laughing and shouting, "Die, Jar Jar!  Die!"  

There are so many ways for Jar Jar to die and we deserve just one of them.  Just one.  

It's time for us fans to stand up for our canon.  Star Wars belongs to us.  We've spent enough of our time and money keeping it alive and it's about time we had some kind of reward.  Forget action figures we have to shell money out to buy or some licensed Official Merchandise.  It's time the writing reflected our love of the Star Wars universe.  

It's not about anger and rage, or even hatred.  It's about fucking respect.  When a writer gives us a shitty character like Jar Jar Binks, they don't respect us, and they sure as fuck don't care.  We do, though.  We care a lot.  And it's time they showed us fans a little respect.  

I hope you all share this.  Pass it around.  Let's get Jar Jar's head rolling so we'll finally get some kind of closure on having to suffer through the worst character ever created.